A Race At U. Michigan To Register As Election Nears

This story was written by Trevor Calero, Michigan Daily

If you've set foot on the Diag these past few weeks, chances are someone armed with a clipboard and pen has asked if you're registered to vote.

With the 2008 presidential election closing in, many political organizations have made it a priority to reach out to unregistered voters.

As a volunteer for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Damon Dickerson's job is to make sure as many people as possible who aren't currently registered to can cast ballots on Election Day.

"The main goal is getting new people registered to vote, get people involved in the political process," Dickerson said. "Their enthusiasm dictates what goes on in this country for all of us."

Dickerson starts his day at the Obama campaign office located at Liberty Street and First Street, where he is assigned to a team of up to 50 people.

With voter registration forms in one hand and a pen in the other, Dickerson and the other volunteers hit the streets of Ann Arbor, camping outside storefronts, waiting at street corners or going door-to-door.

While the Obama campaign has been a visible voter registration force in Ann Arbor, many other student organizations are planning large-scale efforts to register voters in the fall.

Nathaniel Eli Coats Styer, chair of the University of Michigan's chapter of College Democrats, said the group is going to start on the very first day of welcome week.

"Anywhere there are going to be students, we're going to be registering voters," Styer said.

The group plans to focus registration efforts on the residence halls, making sure College Democrats members register everyone in their halls, he said.

Brady Smith, chair of the University's chapter of College Republicans, said that one of the group's main goals will be to raise voter awareness.

"We're an advocacy group," he said. "We're going to sit down and ask these basic questions: Are you registered to vote? Should you change your registration? How does absentee work? There's a lot of confusion with these things."

Voice Your Vote, a Michigan Student Assembly commission, will continue its efforts to increase student participation in the upcoming election. One of its main initiatives will be reaching out to freshmen, according to MSA Vice President Arvind Sohoni.

Along with the Office of New Student Programs, VYV distributed more than 4,000 flyers to freshmen during orientation with information on how to register.

Sohoni said that throughout the fall, VYV would work closely with University Housing in a program called "Dorm Storm," where members will register students door-to-door in the residence halls.

To make the process more convenient, Sohoni said VYV will coordinate with the Ann Arbor City Clerk's office to have drop boxes for in-state voters affixed to several high-traffic buildings on campus.

"We could have a student pick up a form, fill it out at their own pace and drop it back off at one of these boxes," he said.

Ann Arbor City Clerk Jackie Beaudry said VYV would be in charge of monitoring the boxes.

Beaudry said the City Clerk's office would also participate in both Festifall and Northfest, setting up booths to explain the voting process and registering students to vote.

Dickerson, who said he has worked with groups that registered as many 100 people in a day, said that the main incentive for registering voters should be to give all voters a voice in a pivotal presidential race.

"I'm trying to get people registered to vote, period," he said.